My father has had another heart attack. One of his bypasses from about 15 years ago had gotten clogged and he had been ignoring the symptoms for a couple of weeks. Some of the symtoms may have been masked by the pain he's been feeling from having shingles. They catheterized the blocked artery and also had to put in a stent to keep it open. Then last night while still in the hospital recovering, his heart stopped at least a couple of times and he had to have emergency surgery to replace his old pacemaker with a new temporary one. The new one is temporary because he had been scheduled to go this coming Wednesday to a different hospital to get his pacemaker replaced with a combined pacemaker-defibrilator, and they still plan to do this.
I just found out that the old pacemaker which had been put in 7 years ago was supposed to be serviced every 5 years for the battery, and had not yet been serviced. Dad's cardiologist has been otherwise absolutely impeccable in her treatment of him. While in the hospital they have also discovered that his blood oxygen levels are a lot lower than they'd like, so when he goes home he's going to have to sleep with a full oxygen mask (he previously had a period of about a year where he slept with an oxygen tube under his nose). They are also going to make him sleep in a hospital-type bed at home, with the bed inclined somewhat (I made a crack about him sleeping like a Minbari but he was only mildly amused). So far he's holding up pretty well, but it's been a rough 9 or 10 months for him, between losing the house in a tornado, getting shingles, and now this. And he wasn't particularly excited about turning 75 last July, either. So because of this and because my workload is starting to pick up again (in addition to my regular duties, I finally managed to con... er... convince my manager to get me onto the Diversity Council at work, and I just found out that I got a spot on the Diversity Training sub-team that I have been wanting), you'll probably see less of me around here over the next few weeks to few months, at least. I strongly urge anyone who is still planning their charitable contributions for the year to consider giving some money to the American Heart Association. And all of you, male and female alike, should make sure you know the symptoms of heart disease and heart attacks and then take those symptoms seriously if you get them. Reggie Bautista _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
